We Are Never Whole

We are never whole
we're born incomplete --
naive, suspicious, trusting, selfish, hungry, afraid
dependent on the mercies of others
being made everyday
in their multiple shapes and shadows, 
a loosely knotted ball of
myriad prejudices, anxieties, mixed memories
and learning to call it our "selves"

We spend our middle years
trying to be whole 'again'
chasing a delusion
of constructed realities
unrequited desires
abandoned dreams
gather memories, 
as if they'll last us a lifetime
memories that start changing
the moment they're born
like us

The wisdom that we think
we get, as we grow old
is a piecemeal, primal understanding
of our incompleteness
our bone deep acceptance
that we are a constantly changing part
of a mythical whole -- 
      not just a larger whole of another
      evolving incompleteness, 
      we call humanity, 
      fractured into teeny tiny shards
but a whole that we are
in what we leave behind
on the merciless canvas of time --
as we shed memories
lose faculties and people
integral to our
very idea of ourself

We're lucky
if we can feel whole
looking back at the million holes
in our tattered devolving self
ready to be one
with the larger void 
of completeness ...